Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’m laying down on the couch as I type this so please forgive any errors. I lack the energy to care!

The stomach flu hit me hard yesterday. I will spare you the details. It was very strange to know I didn’t do it to myself. It was not an anxiety thing. I haven’t thrown up of “natural” causes for probably years.

My kids are rock stars. First of all, Gwen puked her guts up in the middle of the night between saturday and sunday. I didn’t even know how extensive the damage was at first. She was bawling her eyes out for messing up her nice clean room. I spent the entire day on saturday cleaning two bathrooms and two bedrooms. all day. Unfortunately the newly steam cleaned carpet had been violated. Oh well. What can you do?

This morning Gwen came down in full on mother mode. “Mom, do you need anyfing? I can make toast. Do you want a banana? You bought all that stuff for us. What do you want me to get for you?” It was so sweet. I told her I wasn’t hungry. Then she went to the bathroom. On her way she said she would pee for me! “Remember that joke Mom?” Family joke. She is such a sweetheart.

Parker made lunch for himself and Gavin. He helped Gwen pour her cereal and milk, which she didn’t eat. He read the directions on the instant oatmeal packet and microwaved himself a bowl of it. That was super helpful to me. Gavin showered and made himself some toast. He was glad to be able to go to school.

right now Gwen is playing with a friend. The playdate was set up last week and my friend was sweet enough to pick Gwen up for me. Gwen deserves some fun after the not fun weekend we’ve had. Plus, she needs a break from the TV.

I’ve got the Propel Zero water heath picked up for me last night. I hate apple juice especially when I’m sick. I was getting worried I might dehydrate since I couldn’t keep anything down. So he hooked me up with a vitamin enhanced sport drink. What little I have consumed today has stayed in my body since 10 last night. I feel another nap coming on. I just wanted to say how lucky i am to have the awesome family I do.

A year or more ago Heath created a gmail account for me. I was having trouble commenting on Blogger blogs. Blogger wouldn’t accept my login information. If it did I showed up as Anonymous. The gmail account fixed the problem.

However, it created new problems. While I can still check the box to receive follow up comments, they come to my gmail rather than my felcore email. I didn’t even know how to access my gmail! Once or twice I stumbled on it. Although maybe Heath told me how to get it those times and I have since forgotten.

Occasionally I will comment on someone’s blog and I always wonder if they comment back. I can check their comment section, obviously, but sometimes people will hit reply and the response will come directly to my email. Or in this case my unchecked gmail account. Since I have commented recently about things that may or may not warrant an emailed response rather than a comment that everyone can read, I wanted to check my gmail. Like I said, I don’t know how!

Playing around yesterday trying to find it brought up my Google+ profile. Apparently I have been invited to several diabetes related discussions on Google+. Several people have also added me as a friend. Huh. It’s like I never look at Google+ anymore!

Heath told me how to access my gmail account. I checked it this morning and saw that I have an overflowing inbox. Maybe 75 plus unread emails isn’t necessarily overflowing. For me it is. I may not be quick at responding to emails but I do see them all come in. Fortunately there were no blog responses among all those unread emails. Just Google+ stuff.

If anyone happens to know I have a gmail account, don’t email me that way. I only check it every 6-12 months!

My kids are hard on shoes and pants and socks and toys. I did not intend for that sentence to go on like that but my kids are pretty hard on stuff! Heath can be pretty hard on his clothes too. It feels like he gets new clothes more often than I do. I’m pretty hard on my hands and my hands are pretty hard on the keyboard!

I have an aversion to wearing gloves. It’s hard to really feel what I’m doing when I have gloves on. So my hands are always exposed to everything. Cleaning chemicals, dirt, and lots of soap. This morning I decided to do a little pruning in the yard. Gloves were an afterthought. After I had sliced my fingers a couple times on thorns that’s when I considered the gloves. But I couldn’t find them. The only gloves I could find were my kids gardening gloves so I toughed it out for the rest of the project. At one point there was blood creeping out of my nail bed after I somehow impaled my finger on something.

Right now my nails are a funky square shape and I am ready to knock off the corners. Why do people like square nails? Since my nails are fairly short at this point the squared off tips are fairly subtle. It still bugs me. I can’t part my hair straight without the use of a comb. I can feel my nails scraping the keys as I type and I have a tendency to rub the letters off the keyboard without square nails! Forget picking my nose or anyone else’s for that matter. Not that I would but still . . . And there is no digging out dirt from under my fingernails. My little adventure in the yard today didn’t clean up as easily as I had hoped.

The other weird thing about my nails is I can feel the nail polish on them! I used to wear nail polish. In fact, every week I would repaint my nails after carefully shaping them with an emery board. This was back in the day when homework was my biggest time consuming responsibility. As I matured I traded my intense colors for simple clear lacquer.

It’s interesting that as I started typing more and handwriting less even the clear polish would chip quickly. I mostly stopped wearing colors on my nails when I would accidentally scratch my nails as I held a pencil. I don’t hold the pencil correctly if you’re wondering how that’s possible. Life kept evolving and spending so much time on my nails was not much of a priority anymore. The long nails stayed but were never painted. I become crippled if too many nails break or rip! I cannot live without my long nails.

I’ve gone back and forth with toenail polish. I’m to a point now where there has to be something there or my feet look naked! A couple months ago my friend invited me to get a pedicure with her. It was fun. Well, she’s going on a cruise this week and wanted to get a mani/pedi first. She invited me to come. I really didn’t want a manicure. What would I do with dolled up nails? But I decided to go for the whole shebang since I’ve never had a professional manicure before. Plus another friend had a manicure right before a trip to Disneyland. She had some newfangled gel or shellac or something and her nails looked awesome nearly a month later. The polish was clear and natural. That’s what I wanted.

Being a pamper virgin is a problem when you can’t remember the words. French manicure! I haven’t painted my nails in years why would I remember that the proper way of saying clear polish is French manicure! The language barrier between the professional pamperers and me was not helping. Thankfully it was understood that I wanted the red polish for my toes and not my fingernails. Somehow I ended up with a pale pink for my fingernails. I was fine with that. It’s very subtle and discreet. The gel or shellac or whatever is obviously worth the price.

My nails after playing in the dirt all morning. Not bad eh?

Ah but the best part are my toes! Not only is it a very Tristan shade of red but the lady offered to do a design. Being a sucker for upgrades I immediately said yes then asked what the extra cost would be. Only $5 for my big toes. Sold! I have to admit that after my first pedicure I thought it was fun and all but my toes were just a boring purple. I could have done that on my own! The experience was worth the price but I was slightly disappointed with my boring feet.

This is how freshly pedicured feet should look! I love the flowers. They are so cute.

It’s a little weird to think of how girly I am becoming. Which is funny to say because I am already very feminine. But now my feet and hands are coifed within an inch of their lives. I feel really good about the progress I made in the yard. It’s always nice to work and feel good about it. It’s just even nicer to know I didn’t waste my money last night. My nails still look fabulous!

Took too long to change my pump site so no shower before feeding kids breakfast and making lunches.

Took Gavin and Elena to school.

30 minutes to shower before taking Parker to school.

60 minutes to put myself and Gwen together to go to the library for Story Time

60 minutes for lunch. Then it was off to the park for a playdate.

30 minutes before it was time to pick up Parker from school.

30 minutes until it was time to pick up Gavin from Chess Club and drop off the kids at the church. They’re practicing for the Primary Program and having a pizza party.

Less than 30 minutes before Heath gets home.

About 60 some odd minutes before we have to pick the kids up from the church.

Woosh! I am tired of driving! I have logged about 25 miles today. Heath filled my van with gas last night and he always resets the trip odometer. I would be sick of my street but I have enjoyed it today. All the leaves are changing colors and falling. It’s a beautiful fall day in the Bay Area.

This is what I do in my spare time. I move the couches and tables around every few weeks. The living room is a blank slate. It’s easy to make the room bigger or smaller depending on my tastes at the time. Do you like the evidence of Gwen?

Every several months or so I will rearrange the sitting area of our bedroom. We have a huge Cal-King Tempur-Pedic bed. We have to be happy where it is because there’s no moving it. So it’s fun to change the rest of the room.

The family room can’t be changed either. We have a large sectional couch that was perfect for our spacious family room in Utah. It takes up the entire family room in our house now. Much like our neighborhood, there is only one way in the room and one way out. This includes a walk in front of the TV. Which is annoying to anyone watching but is grounds for infanticide when Heath is watching any live BYU game. Ever since we moved to this house Heath has wanted to change the couch in the family room. It’s too big. One day . . .

Until then the baby dolls will be snug in their “beds.”

This would be the only downside to all the changes I’ve made. This big stack of pictures need to find new homes on the wall. For now they live on my floor next to Gavin’s telescope that is fairly homeless on its own.

It’s going to be another hot one here. Forecasted highs in the low 100’s. This hairstyle evolved and I kind of like it! I was going to do two buns on top of her head. At the last minute I changed my mind from twisting the buns to scrunching up messy buns. Then I saw the front and decided she looked like Minnie Mouse. So fun.

No, I did not write that many posts in one year. I imported everything from Blogger when I switched to WordPress. Pretty impressive for a little over five years of blogging. It looks like I have plenty of storage space left. I think that’s for pictures but I have no idea! Happy Wordiversary to me.

I’m just checking in. Yes, I’m still alive and well though I will not be posting any pictures or video today. Most of you are thinking I should get over myself and realize the world does not revolve around me. I know. But yesterday my mother in law called to make me jealous. Or so she said that was her purpose! She was enjoying a rare thunderstorm in the great Northwest. Oh and by the way, where have I been the last couple days?

Then today my mom texted me that she was happy to see I posted after taking a couple days off. She wasn’t sure if I was sick or dead or what. Given my track record recently I don’t blame her for worrying.

I am just exhausted. We had a really intense heat wave followed by a dramatic cool down. That zapped the creativity along with some frustration over an art project involving boondoggle. As if that wasn’t enough to tire me out, it’s July. Also known as Birthday Month in my family. Gavin, my sister in law, Parker, my sister, just to name a few. The celebrations go on all month. We tried to keep the boys birthdays separate this year. Ha. Nice wish. Parker has been slowly getting all his gifts since Gavin’s birthday. And there’s still more for Monday!

Today was the Lego birthday party. It was a ton of fun and I have a ton of pictures and video of course. But it knocked me out. We came home and I fell asleep on the couch for a couple hours. Not light snoozing either. Full on inflamed tonsil/adenoid suck the walls of the house in and out snoring. Or so I’ve been told. Heath likes to ask the kids what their favorite part of each day has been. I told him my favorite part of today was my nap. It was a good nap. I slept through most of a Parker meltdown! No kidding.

Anyway, I’m going to zone out zombie style in front of the TV now. Just wanted to let you know that it has been a fun day and I will talk about it later. Goodnight all.

We made it home. Heath predicted we’d be home by 3:00 and we pulled in about 3:10ish. Not bad. It has been a really lousy two days driving home. I could not stay awake yesterday. Heath says he doesn’t mind but still I felt bad.

When he was starting to struggle to stay awake he pulled into a rest area and made me drive. I was nervous at first but it wasn’t too bad. He warned me that Eugene would get more crowded. I hated driving through Eugene, Oregon. By then Heath had napped enough and he was very encouraging as I drove through the city. He told me I could quit whenever I wanted so I was on the lookout for the next rest area where we switched.

We stopped in Medford, Oregon where we had previously booked a room at the Marriott. Much nicer hotel than the Red Lion we stayed at on the way to Washington. But I started deteriorating into an agoraphobic mess. I hated Medford. It carried bad memories of staying in that city before and not having a great experience. Mostly I was upset because I was tired, felt really ugly, and was flat out done with being in public.

I cried from Medford to Weed, California today. It was good to let out my emotions as ridiculously unfounded as they were. It was also a little scary for me since I haven’t felt that depressed in a really long time. Luckily that pit stop in Weed perked me up.

My rotten mood didn’t completely lift though. We all were punchy and sick of everything all day. The trip to JoAnn’s to find pom pom makers for Parker’s craft class on Monday nearly killed us all. My blood sugar was dropping low, my patience had left me yesterday, I was running on fumes, and we couldn’t find the *naughty words* pom pom makers. I did not say naughty words though I really really wanted to. I spent two freaking hours scouring that store for the blasted things before we left for our trip. Trust me, the naughty word temptation was real. Finally we found them in a tiny practically hidden place. Good grief!

I was not going to go into this much detail in this post! I was just going to say we made it home and I will start sifting through our 700+ pictures later. Good night all. It is so good to be home.